Yale undergraduates aim to 'decolonize' the English department's curriculum

A pedestrian walks past Harkness Gate on the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., on Friday, June 12, 2015. (Craig Warga/Bloomberg)

To study only white men or not to study only white men? At Yale, that is the question.

An anonymous petition purportedly authored by undergraduate students in the Yale English Department asks the faculty to “decolonize” a two-semester course on Major English Poets that focuses on eight white male poets: Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, John Donne, John Milton, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, and T. S. Eliot, or another modern poet in the spring.

Instead, the petition seeks a revamped curriculum for the pre-1800 and 1900 that would “deliberately include literatures relating to gender, race, sexuality, ableism, and ethnicity.”

“It is unacceptable that a Yale student considering studying English literature might read only white male authors,” the petition reads. “A year spent around a seminar table where the literary contributions of women, people of color, and queer folk are absent actively harms all students, regardless of their identity.”

As of May 27, according to the Yale Daily News, the petition had at least 160 signatures. While the petition is available online, it is through a Google form and there is no public way to view signatures. The YDN spoke to an author of the petition on condition of anonymity.

However, University Press Secretary Tom Conroy told USA TODAY College that no document has been submitted to the university, for reasons which are unclear as an author of the document could not be reached for this story.

“The Department of English has received a number of inquiries concerning the communication described in media reports as a ‘petition,’” Conroy wrote in an email. “Contrary to widespread reports, no such document has in fact been delivered to the department.”

The faculty at Yale reviews courses and requirements regularly, making changes to the curriculum following thorough discussions, Conroy said.

The petition comes amid a tumultuous year of campus activism. Student activists protested other perceived examples of systemic racism on campus, including the naming of Calhoun College for politician and white supremacist John C. Calhoun, the lack of diversity in faculty, and a controversial email from a Yale lecturer defending Halloween costumes that some saw as cultural appropriation.

Professor Catherine Nicholson, who teaches the Major English Poets sequence, told the YDN that she understands why students might feel alienated by the sequence, and that she’s “eager to participate in a more open conversation” about its place in the major.

English Professor and Associate Director of Undergraduate Students Jill Richards said she hopes the activists’ demands for diversification are met.

“It is unacceptable that the two semester requirement for all majors routinely covers the work of eight white, male poets,” Richards told the YDN.

Adriene Miele, a recent graduate from the English department, said that the department did not serve as her intellectual home during her time at Yale.

“In my four years as an English major, I primarily was lectured (to) by old, white men about rape, about violence, about death, about colonialism, about genocide,” Miele told the YDN.

Aryssa Damron, a Yale English student who just completed the Major English Poets sequence, said she was outraged by the petition and cited other examples of diverse courses available to students in the department, such as Race and Gender in American Literature. Damron told Fox News she thinks the Major English Poets sequence is extremely beneficial.

“Texts like the Canterbury Tales and Paradise Lost are not easy,” Damron says. “They do challenge you and by starting the major that way, you are phenomenally more prepared for the rest of English Literature.”

In a piece for Slate, Yale English graduate Katy Waldman told students that unfortunately, the canon for the sequence “accurately reflect[s] the tainted history we have—one in which straight white cis-men dominated art-making for centuries.”

“If you want to become well-versed in English literature, you’re going to have to hold your nose and read a lot of white male poets. Like, a lot. More than eight,” Waldman wrote. “I want to gently push back, too, against the idea that the major English poets have nothing to say to students who aren’t straight, male, and white.”

Ginger Hervey is a student at University of Missouri-Columbia and a USA TODAY College correspondent.